


All That You Say

by easilydistractedbyfanfic



Series: Tales of the Red Sun Toxin [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Canon Compliant, Cussing, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Only One Bed, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Red Sun Toxin, S7 Canon Divergence, S7 Spoilers, Smut, Truth Serum, What If - Red Sun Toxin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26699113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easilydistractedbyfanfic/pseuds/easilydistractedbyfanfic
Summary: The unexpected arrival of the Red Sun eclipse in Sanctum sends Raven & Murphy running for cover.Murphy may be immune to its effects, but turns out Raven's reaction is a little unusual.
Relationships: John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Series: Tales of the Red Sun Toxin [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942927
Comments: 18
Kudos: 104





	All That You Say

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of ideas for Red Sun Toxin stories, so I'm going to link them all together under a series as I write them. However, they are all stand-alone stories that will not need to be read together. Here's the first one. Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/170152452@N02/50394475682/in/dateposted-public/)

Three things cannot be long hidden. 

The sun. The moon. The truth. 

~ Buddha

The swarm of insects unsettles her more than she’ll admit. Raven had heard about the phenomenon, of course. Seeing it headed straight for her was something altogether different. 

She knew that when the first group from the Eligius IV had landed on the surface of this inhabitable moon weeks ago, they had been attacked by the bugs near a lake, and had stumbled through a patch of woods to try and outrun the pests before finding a protective, electrified dome to escape into. And no one had to remind her exactly how they’d gotten _inside_ that dome either, her feelings about Shaw still complicated and full of guilt regardless of the time skips she’d experienced since she so impulsively left Sanctum with Clarke and the others. 

Raven shakes her head, dragging her focus back to the cloud of droning insects, considering that’s her most pressing problem at the moment. Most of the people in Sanctum have all run outside at the shouts and blasting alarms that had started a few minutes ago, disturbing the pleasant campfire she and Murphy had been enjoying, and in the chaos she’s lost track of him, of Bellamy and Gabriel too. She yells at everyone wandering around in a panic, tells them to run and hopes they know enough to head inside or to try and find some kind of underground shelter. She’s debating where to go herself when she glimpses Bellamy across one of the small ponds as he grabs Cadogan and starts to hustle him off to the right, and she instinctively begins to head in that direction for safety, in a hurry to catch up. Only a few laborious steps later there’s a solid grip on her upper arm along with a tenacious voice in her ear, both urging her in another direction. 

“No, not with them. Too dangerous. Come this way, Raven. Trust me.”

Murphy looks determined, already half-dragging her even before she gives him an answer, but there wasn’t really a question that she’ll follow him, even with the way they’d left things between them when she saw him last. Murphy pushes most of the throngs of Sanctum residents out of their way, clearing a path for her so it’s less of a struggle, and it’s not long before she finds herself back in the palace, although a different part of it than the throne room they started out in. There’s less people around them now, though Murphy still keeps a strong grasp on her, rushing through mostly deserted hallways until she’s hopelessly lost. He wrenches open a door towards the end of a corridor, and she gets a quick glimpse of a fancy desk and chair before Murphy yanks her over to a bookshelf and she watches with interest as he reaches his hand behind a stack of books and then the entire shelf swings forward on unseen hinges. 

“Kaylee Prime wasn’t the only one who kept a diary,” Murphy mutters, quickly pulling her into a dark room behind the bookshelf before he secures the opening once more. “I went through some of Daniel’s things and found out most of the Primes had a hidden hideout in the palace in case things went south.”

“What about everybody else?” Raven asks, out of breath. She can’t see anything except dim shapes around her, so she doesn’t move, uncertain of what she might bump into. 

“Emori and Madi and some of the other survivors of Sheidheda’s wrath are safe in the radiation rooms. They’ll be okay if they keep the door barricaded, and they’ve got those monitors to keep an eye on things outside too. Bellamy and Clarke should both know to take this Red Sun toxin seriously, but I’m not getting stuck with the two of them again, especially with whatever the hell Bellamy has going on with that fucking robe cult.”

Murphy brushes his hand over hers as he speaks, steering her slowly over to a table, his warm fingers guiding hers to wrap over the table edge to orient herself for a short moment before he releases her. 

“I came in here once before, just to see if it was still useful. There’s no windows and as far as I could tell, no power either. Totally off the grid but there’s some candles here. Feel around on the table carefully for them or some matches, okay?”

Relieved to have something to do, eventually her hand curls over a pile of taper candles, and between the two of them, they manage to get some lit. In the flickering shadows, she can see the room isn’t very big, with a large bed against one wall, and the table where they stand close to the entrance is stacked with supplies. There’s more candles in various sizes, a neat pile of folded blankets and clothing, some books and writing accessories, and more than a few knives and daggers. Containers that look like they might hold rations and water are neatly stocked under the table as well, and overall the room looks like a pretty cozy place to hide during any disasters that might befall the palace, although Raven suspects the large covered basin on the floor next to a standing screen is supposed to serve as the bathroom. 

“So we just need to wait this out, right, and then we can go find everyone else, make sure they’re fine?”

Murphy nods over his shoulder at her as he walks around to a few sconces along the walls, and as the candlelight begins to illuminate the bed, Raven notices the heavy shackles bolted to the wall behind it for the first time. It reminds her of the danger they could still be in. 

“Could take a couple hours, but yeah, we should be good in here." He pauses, frowning for a brief moment before sticking the taper in his hand into one of the holders. "We breathed in the toxins outside and on our way through the palace though, and I’m not sure how much it takes before it affects someone. Probably why the chains are here, just like in most of the Sanctum houses. I saw a key hanging by the door, so I’m assuming it’s in case Daniel ended up in this room with someone else.”

“If it’s like last time, you shouldn’t be influenced by the toxin, right?” 

“After I got out of that coma, the doctor that saved me, Cillian, he told me that some rare people are just immune even though they don’t understand why. You should be safe with me. A helluva lot safer than with Bellamy, anyway, if he stays true to form and attempts to kill the people he cares about.” Murphy says it mockingly, but Raven knows it probably still disturbs Murphy, that Bellamy turned on him so suddenly, a trusted friend becoming a threat without warning. 

“I know the feeling,” Raven mumbles under her breath, picturing the indifferent look on Bellamy’s face as he sent her to M-Cap on Bardo, and what a horrific experience that turned out to be. Murphy sends her a questioning glance, but she isn’t ready to talk about it, not even with him. When she started filling him in on everything he didn't know during their quiet and surprisingly relaxing campfire together, she had glossed over that part, her own feelings too raw, so she hadn’t known what to say. Deciding to ignore his curiosity for now, she strides over to the bed and takes off her brace before unlacing her boots. 

“Give me a minute to get comfortable, and then you can chain me up,” she instructs, fluffing the pillow behind her, relieved to see it doesn’t send up a cloud of dust. 

“Not that tying you to the bed doesn’t sound like fun,” Murphy grins, his insolent humor on full display as his gaze sweeps over her from head to foot, sending an embarrassing flush to her cheeks at the insinuation, “but we don’t know for sure how you’re going to react or even if you’re going to at all.”

“True,” Raven acknowledges, willing herself not to let him rile her up as she pulls back the covers so they’re pooled at the bottom of the bed in case she wants them later. “What we do know is that Emori tried to kill you and when she got chained up and couldn’t hurt anyone physically, she harassed and taunted Echo. Bellamy tried to kill all of you, Echo took herself out of the game before she could use all her deadly little spy tricks, and Clarke turned suicidal. Overall, the toxin affects the majority of people, mostly turning them against those they care about but sometimes in other ways too. Although we’ve got you, so uniquely immune.” Raven teases, but then her voice turns sincere again. “Maybe there might be a chance that I react differently too, but there’s weapons in here, and I don’t want to use them against you _or_ myself. So I’m serious - check to make sure the key works first, and then put me in the shackles. There’s enough slack that I’ll be able to lay down, but I won’t be able to reach anything else in the room until you free me.”

Murphy doesn’t look thrilled about it, but he walks back to the door, taking the key from the hook before crossing over to her side of the bed while she takes off her sweatshirt and attempts to find a position she can live with for the next few hours. 

“How about just one wrist?” he suggests, after fiddling with the locks for a few minutes to make sure the key can open them. “No point using both, when even if you do turn murderous, all I have to do is move out of your reach, and it won’t be as uncomfortable that way.”

“Alright, thanks.”

She deliberately chose the right side of the bed so that her right hand, her more capable one, would be farther away from where Murphy would lie down, and she lifts it up towards him, watching as he reluctantly slips the cuff around her wrist and snaps it into place, twisting the key in the lock before closing his fist around it. 

“Maybe we can get some rest. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t exactly been sleeping well lately.”

“Yeah, same here. Although I have to hand it to the Primes when it comes to these beds,” Murphy sighs once he rests his head on his own pillow after kicking off his boots and dropping his long black jacket carelessly onto the floor. “They do know how to live it up on this planet.”

“Moon,” Raven corrects him automatically, tilting her chin to look at him, amusement at his exaggerated eye rolling causing her to smile. 

“Whatever you wanna call it, seems like they could’ve found a better place to live than somewhere that constantly tries to kill you. The carnivorous trees and plants, the sand, the homicidal bugs, the bacteria in the water, the very air itself…Almost makes me miss the Ring,” Murphy says, his voice getting softer when he mentions their old home. 

It feels so long ago since it had been just the seven of them, even though Raven knows the almost unbelievable amount of time spent in cryosleep isn't something she’s really counting as she remembers their years together in space. They’ve only been on Sanctum a short while, although so many of them have some incredibly screwed-up versions of time at this point, especially compared to Murphy and Emori, who haven’t taken any trips through the Anomaly yet. 

She turns onto her side towards Murphy, careful to balance her weight on her left leg so she won’t end up too sore. The bed seemed large when she first entered the room, but now that they’re both in it, with Murphy stretched out next to her, it feels smaller, especially since her bent knees graze his thigh when she moves. 

“Can you believe we only woke up from cryosleep sixteen days ago? So much has happened since then. I feel like I haven’t even begun to process it all.”

Murphy rolls from his back to face her and the bed shrinks further, his expressive blue eyes so close as they stare into hers. “That can’t possibly be right.”

“It is, though it’s different for all of us now depending on if we’ve gone through the Anomaly and to where.”

“Guess that’s one reason we’re having trouble sleeping.”

“That and the torture,” Raven reveals. It just slips out, completely unintentional on her part, but there’s no way to take it back, not when Murphy’s eyes narrow with apprehension as he demands to know what she’s talking about. For some reason, she ends up telling him the entire painful story, how she fought the invasion into her memories, fearful that they might disappear like what happened with ALIE, panicked that she’d give away something dangerous on Bardo that could harm them all… Her eyes well up with tears as the remembrance of it all comes back and she tries not to let them fall. At one point, Murphy’s hand reaches out to cover hers, squeezing to lend support, and she’s no longer as annoyed with herself for her ill-timed confession. 

* * *

One minute he’s catching up with Raven around the campfire, just the two of them, the good and easy kind of conversation they tend to fall into that reminds him just how much he enjoys her company and how much he’s _missed it_ lately, and then the next minute there’s the shrill sounds of alarms and screaming, everyone suddenly on alert as the danger from the Red Sun looms over them all. He loses sight of Raven soon after he stands up, her dark ponytail disappearing into the throngs of people streaming out of their homes, and his fears for her threaten to consume him as he frantically pushes his way through the crowd, his eyes darting everywhere until he finally spots her once more. 

He knew where to go as soon as he heard the first warnings, grateful that Emori and Madi are already as secure as they can be and that he’s got Raven with him instead of her heading off somewhere after Bellamy. Maybe he doesn’t know much about what’s going on with his friend and the man from Second Dawn, but he knows _exactly_ what Bellamy is capable of under the influence of the eclipse toxin, and the last thing he wants is Raven facing that, especially when she’ll be much safer with him and where he’s going to take her. 

The hidden room is exactly the way he left it, and relief flows through him once he locks the door behind the two of them, knowing that even if she’s affected by the toxin, no one can attack them in here, and if she ends up like Clarke and turns on herself, he can make sure she won’t do any damage. It still takes him by surprise though, when she orders him to tie her up, and the sight of her chained and laying on the bed sends a dark and demanding bolt of lust straight to his gut no matter how hard he tries to suppress it. Hoping that he’s hiding his reaction, he settles onto the mattress beside her, only turning to look at her after he’s carefully regulated his breathing. 

Everything she told him during their campfire about Bardo is disturbing, from her fears that Echo and Octavia had been brainwashed at first to Echo’s near miss at enacting revenge that would have killed them all if Raven hadn’t intervened, to Hope almost accomplishing it herself, but those are might-have-been scenarios that he can try to force out of his head since they didn’t actually come to full fruition. The torture though… that’s different. He understands the comment she made earlier when he was talking about what Bellamy might do under the Red Sun, accepting that she really does understand how he feels. Both of them have been betrayed by Bellamy; him literally dying because of Bellamy’s actions and Raven being tortured and brought close to it. Maybe both times Bellamy hasn’t exactly been himself, but it’s difficult to separate that fact out of the nightmares. It’s yet another thing he wishes he and Raven didn’t have in common, especially when he can see just how much she’s struggling to understand how Bellamy could have been so apathetic towards her, like sending her off for torture meant nothing to him. 

Realizing that Raven is being much more open and vulnerable with her emotions than usual is what first tips him off to the possibility of a problem, though he’s mostly too caught up in trying to think of something to say to comfort her while feeling a tightness in his own throat that he can’t get past. He settles for rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand to soothe her, though he’d rather thread his fingers with hers or wipe the tears off her cheeks, and it’s only when she starts to tell him about how the attendant on Bardo kept replaying the memories she has about witnessing those she loves die - Finn, Sinclair, Abby - that Murphy figures out something could be seriously wrong. 

Raven doesn’t talk about Sinclair’s death. Ever. Not even during her worst incidents with Monty’s algae alcohol. He’s never pushed her to, understanding that she probably feels about Sinclair the way he feels about his own father, and all those emotions are so painful still that he doesn’t like to _think_ about it, let alone talk. Already what she’s saying feels intimate, too private like he’s getting a glimpse inside her heart that he shouldn’t be, and he has to fight down the urge to let her keep going, both because he thinks it might be good for her and selfishly because he wants to be the one she confides in. 

“Raven,” he interrupts, tightening his grip on her hand as his concern and frustration both rise, “are you feeling okay?”

A confused expression clouds her dark brown eyes. “I don’t know. I do feel a little strange, I think?” 

It definitely comes out like a question, as if she isn’t sure herself, and his eyes trail over her face, looking for anything that could indicate what’s going on. He doesn’t know _what_ they could have done to her on Bardo. “Do you want to be talking about Sinclair with me right now?”

“Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure why I keep talking. I don’t understand why I’m saying everything that comes into my head,” she informs him, her voice tinged with panic, and he rushes to reassure her. 

“Hey, it’s okay. It might be the Red Sun taking effect on you, or something leftover from the memory experiments on Bardo. Either way, you’re safe in here. We’ll figure it out, alright?”

She nods, and there’s no mistaking the nervous way she scoots farther into the middle of the bed, her toes pressing against his shins, the chains attached to her wrist rattling loudly in the quiet of the flickering shadows around them. He doesn’t remove his hold on her, slipping his palm under hers and giving in to his desire to hold her hand for real, and he wonders which one of them the touch brings more solace to when her fingers slide between his. 

He asks her a few questions to see if there’s anything wrong with her memory, and nothing seems unusual about her answers. He’s beginning to think maybe there’s nothing really going on except that they’re both feeling paranoid, so he throws out a question he expects her to shoot down. 

“Why did you go through the Anomaly without telling me or Emori? We didn’t know what happened to you. All we knew was that there were bodies in the woods.”

Raven’s lips pinch together, like she’s attempting to hold something back, but he doesn’t fill the silence, just lets it build between them because he really does want to know how she could have left them so easily, without thinking it through or talking about it or hell, not even saying goodbye. Especially not saying goodbye.

“I was upset,” she eventually relents. “After everything that happened in the reactor room, I shot and killed a bunch of strangers in the woods because they were threatening Clarke and the others. At that point I would have taken whatever escape was available. I wanted something, anything to focus on that didn’t involve my feelings. So I left. It wasn’t until after we got to Nakara and the way out wasn’t obvious that I wished I hadn’t done it. That I recognized I had been irresponsible and was scared I'd made another mistake I couldn't fix.” Her eyes widen and she scowls at him across the scant distance between their pillows. “Damn it! I don’t want to be saying any of this to you! Why am I saying this?”

“Upset with who, Raven?” It’s a good bet he’s an asshole for pushing, but if there’s a chance she’s stuck answering things whether she likes it or not, there’s no way he can pass up the opportunity. 

“Me,” she bites out. “You. The entire situation. Stop asking me things!”

“Maybe you have a rare response to the toxin too,” he muses, pushing up his sleeves and leaning up on his elbow so he can see the details of her face better. The bare skin on his forearms is warmed by the heat emanating off her body, or maybe it’s the annoyed look on her face that’s getting him overheated. “Clarke did a lot of talking to herself because of the eclipse. She thought she was hearing voices, but the only one speaking was her. Maybe you’re going to get chatty on your own too, saying all kinds of things you’d rather keep private, but can you really blame me for asking, when it looks like you’re going to answer everything honestly?”

A huge sigh escapes her lips, and she turns her head away from him to look up at the gloomy shadows that shimmer across the ceiling. “No,” she mutters, “but the things I say tend to cut deep.” 

She’s not wrong about that, but it’s what he does too. Words can be far more painful than weapons. Tough to hold it against her when he understands the impulse all too well though. It’s a dangerous game he’s indulging in, asking Raven things that would likely be better off left unsaid. It might have been easier for them both if she’d turned murderous instead of honest. He wants to look her in the eye again, judge how much she’s willing to let him get away with before her temper snaps, and he considers what he could say that would tick her off enough to have her glaring at him again instead of avoiding him, but she speaks before he can come up with anything. 

“I won’t hold it against you if you can’t get the job done on the first try, but I swear you better not hit my eyes or my nose!”

“What are you talking about?” He’s lost at her abrupt comment, seemingly disconnected from the conversation they were just having. 

Her eyes plead with him when she turns towards him once more, and there’s so much apprehension in them he wishes he could look away. “I want you to _hit me_ , Murphy! Knock me out cold! I don’t want to start talking to myself, and you know I have too many bad things I could say if I keep talking. Just hit me and save us both some suffering for a change!” 

“I’m _not_ going to hit you,” he insists, shaken by her suggestion. Just the thought of hitting Raven leaves him with an icy knot of dread in his stomach. He’s caused her enough hurt for multiple lifetimes. 

“Gag me then, at least do that if you won’t knock me unconscious.” She’s practically begging him, and he wonders why she’s so adamant about it. 

He might have to gag her, if she starts saying the kinds of things he can so easily imagine her thinking about him. The awful, self-incriminating beliefs that refuse to leave his own head no matter how hard he tries to ignore them. It’ll be too much if she starts to repeat those kinds of insults when he knows she’s telling the truth. It’s one thing to assume how Raven might feel about him, but it would be so much worse to have it all confirmed. 

“If I have to, I will.” 

Relief at his promise has her mouth relaxing at the edges, and he knows he should let it go, shouldn’t keep pressing his luck when she’s at such a disadvantage, but…it’s Raven. And when does he ever get this kind of chance, anyway? To _know_ that she’s being completely authentic with him and can’t hide behind her protective layers of defense? It’s difficult to believe even though it’s happening right in front of him. Fuck, he can’t pass this up, even knowing it could blow up in his face. 

“Are you still angry with me, for how we left things between us?” He’s angry with himself, actually, but she hurt him when she locked him in that room like she couldn’t trust him to get the job done, and the things he’d said to her after… he’d regretted them as soon as they came out of his mouth, but that wasn’t anything new. Keeping his mouth shut has never been a lesson he knows how to learn. 

“No, not really,” she shakes her head gently on the pillow, her hair spreading out over her shoulder with a faint clink of the chain. “Kind of hard to hold a grudge against you after seriously thinking I was going to die more than once after I left Sanctum. Rearranges the priorities, you know? Anyway, you have reason to be angry with me too.”

Her answer comes with less reluctance than he expects, bringing with it a loosening of the guilt he’s been carrying around since he last saw her. Being at odds with Raven always leaves him tense. 

“I’m not mad at you.” His reply spills out insistently, seeking to convince her. 

He stopped being upset the second Indra told him there were bodies in the woods, and that their friends were all missing. Not knowing where she was, if she was hurt or taken against her will or if something in the forest had gotten to her - it had sent him right back to how he’d felt when they’d returned to Earth together, when she’d made him leave her behind to save their friends. Not knowing if she was safe or being cared for or far, far worse… He’d made a deal with the devil then, to get her back, and he’d do it again without thinking twice. 

“You should be.” Her words are harsh, oozing self-reproach, and even though she did hurt him, he thinks she’s being too hard on herself. Like usual. 

“I might get angry with you sometimes, but it never lasts. I shouldn’t tell you that, since it’ll just leave you gloating, but you know nothing you ever do to me could ever compare to what I did to you.” 

She doesn’t like what he says, he can read it in the way her eyes narrow and her lips tighten at the corners but it’s been the way of things for years and it’s the simple truth whether she wants to hear it or not. 

“Maybe you’re not immune to this toxin after all,” she suggests, choosing not to chastise him for his own self-recrimination, but he knows better than to believe her. It’s not the Red Sun making _him_ honest - that desire has always been there with her, right from the start. Something about Raven has always prodded him into opening up, even when it’s painful. At first he told himself it was the guilt eating at him, why he always ended up oversharing with her, but after years of living with her on the Ring and divulging far more secrets about himself than even he would have guessed, experience has taught him differently. Being straightforward with Raven is the only way he knows how to be. 

Raven squeezes his hand, pulling his attention away from his memories, reminding him just how close they are to each other, sprawled out in a comfortable bed in a hidden room in an alien castle where no one will ever find them. It feels like he’s getting away with something, having her all to himself after what feels like weeks of chaos, and he might never have this opportunity again. He might not get to stare into her lovely dark eyes that have flecks of gold that fascinate him and ask the question he’s been struggling with since he left her behind to die on Becca’s island, numbing a part of his heart permanently in the process. 

“I’m not going to play fair and I’m sorry; I shouldn’t be asking you this...But I need to know because I’ve never understood it.” His throat feels tight, a warning sign that this is too much, that he should leave well enough alone and be grateful for how things stand between them already. But he has to _know_ , has to hear her say it when she can’t lie to him. “Do you really forgive me for shooting you all those years ago?” 

The way she so attentively watches him is too gentle, her features going soft as the question hangs between them. If he could he would have asked without looking at her, hide the vulnerability that has to be so obvious to her while they lay side by side, but he can’t even close his eyes under her scrutiny, let alone turn away. 

“Murphy,” Raven starts, her voice so sincere it makes his heart ache, “you were just an inexperienced kid who got treated like a throwaway one too many times and you finally snapped. You wanted revenge, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even when I was at my most furious about it, I always knew it wasn’t personal.”

It’s _her_ eyes that dart away, flicking to their still-clasped hands that bridge the inches between them. He’s tempted to use his grip on her to tug her closer but he holds back, sensing she has more to tell him. When her head lifts once more, he’d swear her gaze reflects the same vulnerability found in his own. 

“I forgave you a long time ago, and I meant it then and I mean it now. I need you to accept it when I say it again. You didn’t mean it, I know that, and you’d take it back if you could. _I forgive you_ , John Murphy, and you need to finally forgive yourself.”

It’s not so much that he didn’t believe her, before. She’s said it in various ways over the years; with her actions along with her words. On some level he knows they never could have become the friends that they are if she still held such a terrible grudge against him. In all the years he’s known her, Raven’s never been a liar, except maybe to herself sometimes. Hearing it now though, when she _has_ to tell the complete truth, feels like an absolution, an overwhelming tidal wave of feeling that slams into him and leaves him reeling in its wake because her words are so profound and significant.

Nothing can prevent him from surging forward, leaning in to loom over her, his fingers reaching up to curve around the back of her neck, drawing her in until she’s close enough so his mouth can collide with hers. It happens so quickly that he has no idea what Raven’s thinking as their kiss begins, no idea if he’s shocked the hell out of her with his impulsive gesture, but it only takes a few urgent strokes of his lips on hers before she relaxes into him and the kiss turns into everything he’s ever wanted. He maneuvers her under him, resting his weight on his spread knees so he can get both his hands on her as the kiss continues, getting messier and more uncontrolled by the second. The chain on her wrist rattles as her arms wrap around him and skate up his back but it seems muffled somehow, like they’re in another world where reality can’t intrude. He doesn’t want to stop kissing her, stop touching her, feeling hungry in a way he can barely describe or hold onto, only knowing that what he’s doing satisfies something inside him that’s been too long ignored. 

Her skin is warm beneath his fingertips, smooth and soft and inviting, and when he clutches her waist, pushing her shirt up so he can touch even more of her, she sighs, sinking further into the mattress below him. Before he knows it the two of them have hands at the buttons on his shirt, haphazardly working to get them undone so he can push it down his arms. It’s easier to get her top over her head, though it gets stuck around the cuff on her wrist until he shoves it further down the chain and out of their way. He barely gets a glimpse of the exposed swell of her breasts since all he can concentrate on is continuing to kiss her. For all that he wasn’t thinking when he started this, was listening to his gut and his emotions above everything rational, what they’re doing feels instinctive, natural, and nothing except Raven herself disagreeing could stop him now that he’s crossed such a huge boundary between them. 

“Tell me you want this as much as I do,” he mumbles into her neck, hand slipping up to skim just below the fabric of her bra, teasing just under the band as she squirms beneath him. 

“I do want this,” she whispers, head tipped back as she gives him access to nibble against her ear. Her hands clench along his shoulders when he bites more firmly, following it with a long lick just under the sensitive skin of her earlobe, the shiver that ripples through her giving him a rush of satisfaction. He’s almost got her bra unhooked before she says the words that make his mouth and fingers freeze. 

“This will cause problems for both of us,” Raven warns him, her voice unsteady and breathless and still full of so much honesty even though this is the kind he _doesn’t_ want to hear. 

He should care; for his sake, for hers and god knows for Emori’s, but it’s damn near impossible to care about anything other than how much he wants her and how long he’s wondered what it would be like between them. Now that he’s gotten his first taste, he needs more no matter the consequences. 

“All that matters right now is that we both want to know,” he tells her, already sliding his lips back up her jaw. “Everything else is for tomorrow.”

Maybe it’s wrong that he captures her mouth again, preventing her from answering, and he’s quite aware that plenty of guilt and deserved repercussions will have been more than earned on his part, but how can he focus on what will happen later when she smells like she does and she’s pliant in his arms this very second and every dark and secret fantasy he’s had for years is about to come true? It’s easy to shrug off because he _wants_ to shrug it off, and it only gets easier when he succeeds in sliding her bra down her shoulders to dangle off her wrist, baring her breasts to his greedy gaze before he bends his head to swirl his tongue over her nipple and roams his hands over every flawless inch of them. 

The noises she makes while his lips explore her are amazing, only adding to his impatient arousal, but something wicked in him has him wanting more of her words, more of her candor while the advantage is his. 

“Just to be on the safe side,” he murmurs into her breast, his thumb rubbing over the nipple his mouth isn’t occupied with, “this isn’t making you feel like you want to attack me, is it?”

She arches up off the bed into him, gasping. “No! I want to kiss you!”

He hides a smug grin as he slips back up her body, giving in to her wishes because kissing Raven is something he’s never going to get enough of. The length of chain clatters again when she angles her hips restlessly under his, bracketing his thighs with her knees, and his fingers are fumbling with the fastenings of her pants before he even realizes what he’s doing. Somehow they cooperate well enough to get them off her while barely interrupting their passionate kisses, and it is very, very intentional when he eventually sneaks his fingers under the edge of her panties, eager for the hot, wet heat of her cunt. 

His cock jerks uncomfortably in the tight confines of his pants with the first brush of his hand over the damp curls between her legs, and when he slowly glides two fingers inside her while he swallows Raven’s muffled cry with his mouth, it’s a miracle he doesn’t come immediately. She’s so... _perfect_ , all tight and clenching around his fingers while she lets him kiss her so ravenously, and he needs to be inside her so badly it’s becoming painful, his dick leaking so much his underwear is sticky. 

“What about now?” He struggles with the question, open mouth pressed against her jaw as he takes a shuddering breath. “Do you want to kill me now?”

“No, no, please, I just want you inside me,” Raven pleads with him, and this time it’s _exactly_ the truth he wants to hear, that she needs this as much as he does. 

If he wasn’t feeling so wildly uncontrolled, he’d make her come first, wanting to feel it happen while he watches her every reaction but he’s too far gone, too desperate and aching to do anything but sink himself into her welcoming body. Regrettably, he eases his fingers out of her, sucking them clean while he grapples with his pants and underwear before clumsily getting Raven’s panties down her legs. Fuck, he feels like an inexperienced teenager, his nerves working overtime as his eyes rake over the long, naked length of her. She’s so damned pretty everywhere, soft and strong at the same time as he situates himself over her once more, unable to resist cupping her jaw in his palm while he kisses her again. The feel of her tongue sliding against his makes his pulse hammer in his ears, his cock throbbing against his belly, and then his wait is over as he lines himself up exactly where he needs to be. She tosses back her head, stretching out his name in a long, satisfied sigh when he fills her, the sound of it full of wonder and pleasure, turning him on even more as he grits his teeth and forces himself to make this last. 

He’s torn between the desperate urge to fuck her hard and fast and with all the pent-up lust he’s been carrying around for years or draw this out, slow and relentless until they’re both sweaty and shaking and ruined for anyone else. 

The decision gets made when Raven bucks her hips up and bites her sharp little teeth into the fleshy part of his shoulder, setting off a dizzying surge of lust within him that makes his head swim. 

Fuck it, he can do both. 

* * *

Raven doesn’t understand what’s happening until Murphy begins to question her, asks if she _wants_ to be telling him about Sinclair. The answer is difficult to figure out, part of her insisting that she wants to share her never-ending grief and sadness about the man who she will always view as a beloved father figure, and another part of her worried that these are usually emotions she keeps private and that something must be wrong if she’s feeling the urge to confide. Although it isn’t as if she doesn’t trust Murphy with her sorrow - it’s more that she’s so used to keeping it bottled up for so very many reasons. 

Gradually it begins to dawn on her that the only thing she can put into words is the unvarnished truth, and even when she makes an attempt to hold something back, to not reveal a comment that feels too personal, the impulse is just too strong. Everything Murphy asks her only succeeds in making her more nervous, helped along by the comforting touch of his hand in hers, and her urgent appeal to be knocked out or gagged is absolutely authentic on her part because she’s afraid her traitorous tongue is going to expose more honesty than she can handle. 

It’s just like Murphy though, to keep pushing his luck, and before she can think of a way out of it they’re talking about the radiation leak, about Hatch and the miners and the people she’s killed and the terrible, awful mess of it all. Thankfully he doesn’t dive too deep into specifics, dread pooling in her stomach at the thought of what he _could_ ask her, but then he changes things up and admits that he never stays angry with her for long, making her cringe at the guilt he still carries around on her behalf. She should have seen it coming, what he asks her after. Murphy talks about not playing fair but this isn’t something she’d ever hold against him, that he wants to know if she really means the forgiveness she’d offered him so long ago. It’s always made her sad, knowing that he’s never fully accepted her words, and maybe not her actions either, and for a moment there’s a burst of happiness within her that the eclipse has done this to her - has given them both this gift - because maybe now he’ll _finally_ see that she’s always been honest about it, has always understood his actions more than he thinks. 

She doesn’t consider what to say before she answers him, only searches inside herself for what _feels_ right, and she can see it almost, the look in his vulnerable blue eyes when it at last clicks, when he genuinely accepts that she means it. There’s no time for relief or elation or anything else, however, because Murphy shocks the hell out of her when he tugs her into his chest and kisses her like he’s starving and she’s everything he’s dreamed of gorging himself on. There’s no resisting a kiss like this, not that she wants to, so she molds herself to his warm, persistent body, incapable of anything except kissing him back just as fervently.

It feels like slow-motion when she notices his shirt is gone and so is hers, and she’s so turned on her vision seems blurry, forcing her focus solely on the incredible sensations his touch arouses within her. Everything only gets hazier when he confesses he wants this, has her admitting how much she wants him too, how much they both want this to happen. For so long it’s only been in the most secretive fortifications in her mind that she would have admitted to being attracted to Murphy; a huge part of her anxiety over this truth serum effect she’s experiencing is tangled up with her fears that she could end up revealing her private thoughts, but now it hardly matters that he knows she wants him. How can she feel anything but lust when he’s touching her like this?

Except her admission loosens something within her, even though it’s the last thing she wants to mention, to interrupt what they’re doing because she can’t keep the facts of their situation from falling out of her mouth. But there’s no restricting it, not when she doesn’t have control of her words. 

“This will cause problems for both of us.”

And what a massive understatement that is, she’s well aware. It’s hard to remember it though, when Murphy’s hands run across her body and leave trails of heat behind, and when he tells her it’s a worry for tomorrow and not now as his lips caress hers once more and he gets her bra off, tingles of excitement racing up her spine. She succumbs to the inevitable as soon as his mouth closes over her nipple, turning back no longer an option. Everything escalates after that - his fingers inside her get her so close to the edge that she almost screams in frustration when he pulls away, but then her panties are whisked off in a hurry and he’s plunging into her so completely, so sublimely that she’ll forgive him everything as long as he never stops. 

Murphy fucks her like he’s never going to get the chance to again, part squeezing her hip tight and thrusting deep and hard so she’s sparking and gasping and writhing beneath him, and then a few moments later steady and controlled, his cock stimulating her tiniest nerve endings and dragging out the sensations until she can barely withstand it. The unpredictable change in technique has her taut with tension, her body wound tighter and tighter with every onslaught of his hips into hers, with every graze of his fingers and press of his lips, and it makes an ironic sort of sense, that the hands that are responsible for some of her worst pain can also bring her the most pleasure. 

She comes so hard and so thoroughly that she half expects to levitate off the bed, quivering and whimpering in Murphy’s arms as her orgasm slowly recedes from its peak, but she’s still trembling when he reaches between them to circle his thumb against her clit at the same time he drives himself erratically within her, his cock spurting inside her cunt just as another orgasm hits her like a massive wave, pulling her under until she’s boneless and exhausted. 

When she opens her eyes again, Murphy’s pulled her half on top of him, the sheet snug across her hip, her chained wrist draped over his waist. His fingers are toying with the ends of her hair, his chest rising and falling in slow, relaxed breaths, and she’s undeniably comfortable with the stable constant of his heartbeat under her ear, the feel of his come drying on her thighs. The realization that it didn’t even occur to her to prevent him from finishing inside her even though they both know pregnancy is a possibility after what happened to Harper and Monty...It matters that she didn’t stop _him_ , considering she had been fully in control of herself the only time she had sex with Shaw, stipulating that he pull out instead of taking the reckless risk. She manages to fight the reflex to skim her fingers over her stomach, conscious of the fact that only Murphy so frequently has her losing all ability to reason. 

The urge to open her mouth is powerful, to tell him that what they just did meant something to her, maybe meant everything, and that it doesn’t have to be the only time they get to have together if he wants that too, but the words won’t come. There’s no use wondering whether the Red Sun toxin is wearing off or if it’s her own fears and insecurities preventing her from speaking. Either way, once they open the bookshelf and step back into the real lives that await them, they both have obligations... some of them to the same person. 

Maybe it’s for the best that she should just consider everything in this secret room like a silver lining; something ephemeral and fragile and not meant to last but the kind of gift that will help her keep going, help her endure everything still to come. It only makes sense, that each of them was running high with emotion, and they got caught up because of everything that’s been happening to them in such a short amount of time. 

Maybe that’s even what she’ll say to him, when she’s capable of talking without too much emotion in her voice or tears in her eyes so he won’t suspect just how affected she is by what they’ve done...what they’ve each divulged with their words and actions. She’s practicing it in her head, exactly how she should lay it all out, when she feels Murphy’s fingers under her chin, lifting her head so she’ll look at him. 

“Are you still being compelled to tell the truth?” His expression is inscrutable, his normally expressive blue eyes too mysterious to read. 

She tries it out in her mind first, the answer to his question, and then she slowly shakes her head, keeping her mouth firmly shut. There’s a flicker of regret in Murphy’s eyes with her response, but he conceals it quickly, hiding it behind desire instead. 

“Lie to me then,” he orders her, right before he hauls her up his body, his lips descending on hers in another intense kiss. She can do nothing but let him, can only match his shamelessness; taking what he’s offering because everything they do in here belongs to only them, and she’s giving herself permission to have it for as long as they're in this bed together.

It's not that surprising to hear him say it, that Murphy might think her response to him without the Red Sun influence wouldn’t be the same, but he doesn’t know the truth about what’s in her heart. He hasn't yet asked the most dangerous questions. 

She doesn’t know whether she should feel relieved about that or not. 

_Lie to him_. 

Lying to him afterwards would be for the best, for all of them. That much seems obvious. If she concentrates hard enough, she could possibly pull it off, maybe convince him that just because she wanted to have sex with him while under the effects of the toxin, that it didn’t mean anything else. That it was just something physical they should put behind them. There's a chance she could do it, if she's diligent and unselfish.

_Lie to him._

Her body...that’s another story. Whether he knows it or not, there’s nothing false about the way she reacts to his touch. Her body will always tell the truth where he’s concerned, and there’s no point in trying to pretend otherwise. 

_Lie to him._

It would be for the best, for all of them.

_Lie to him_. 

Even after all the alien truth toxin has drained out of her veins, there’s no changing the absolute fact that she’s been slowly falling in love with John Murphy for years now. Made all the more obvious to her every second they continue to kiss. 

_Lie to him_. 

If only she wanted to.

If only she could. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love kudos & comments - positive feedback always spurs me on when I'm in a writing rut, and I appreciate all of you regular readers & newbies very much! Stay safe, sane & healthy out there! There's only one episode of the show left - ahhhhh I can't believe it!!


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